The biggest story during this year's Academy Awards was the presence of only one African-American out of the 166 nominees. Lawrence Fishburne was passed over for his title role in Othello; Angela Basset got skipped for Waiting to Exhale; and no one acknowledged the strong performances in Devil in a Blue Dress. Many attribute these oversights to Hollywood's history of racism during the awards, but the problem is more complex. It stems from what Americans expect of African-American artists. To use a catch-phrase, it has to do with a kind of racial canon that black artists have been struggling with for over 70 years.
In the Harlem Renaissance, African-American artists like Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes revolutionized American literature and popular culture. For the first time in contemporary American history, African-American society was a part of popular, progressive, intellectual society.
However, instead of being able to express their own individuality in their art, black artists were expected to "speak for their whole race." In the 1920s, black poets and authors were expected to serve as a projection of whites' expectations. Their work was supposed to have soul, passion, and spontaneity-all things that the white society wanted to admire in the Harlem Renaissance. Pressure on black artists also came from those in their own community. The consensus among the black literary elite was that all literature written by members of the community had to be a positive representation of the community.
In the 1990s we have a different, but equally powerful, racial canon of anger. Today, the "best" and "socially responsible" films by and about African-Americans are films about intense anger within the community and, usually, at the rest of society.
This anger canon is detrimental, not because it is invalid, but because it is restrictive. It doesn't allow artists to explore other aspects of minority life and still reap popular support for their work. Films like Othello, Mi Familia, and Waiting to Exhale were seen as a bubble-gum version of what minority artists should be attacking with their work. However, these films were able to say to white America, "It's not about you, it's about us." Their focus did not revolve around racism or inner-city violence but rather explored what was right, wrong, and changing within their own families, friends, communities, and about the imperfections and inner-workings of their culture. However, in light of this racial canon, their performances were largely dismissed by critics and audiences of all color.
The purpose of art is being lost through these limitations. We should applaud those who deviate from the accepted canon and not dismiss their work. In retrospect, the most respected artists were not the ones who went along with the standards of the times, but rather the ones who broke every rule and opened our eyes to novel aspects of their respective mediums. Art does have a social function, but that function is not to perpetuate accepted norms. Its purpose is to cross lines, be revolutionary, and make us think about things in ways that are different than the way we think of them now.
Julia Dahl is a freshman in Saybrook College.
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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